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Monday, July 17, 2006

News 2 Use: The Where the Hell Have You Been Edition

Did you miss me? I'm an inconstant and fickle sort of woman, c'est vrai.

Electrically conductive microbes may hold the key to nanotechnology advances. Researchers have reported success in manipulating certain bacteria into producing nanowires that "will literally reach out and connect cells from one to another to form an electrically integrated community."

I didn't even know there were electrically conductive bacteria, let alone the potential to harness them to produce teeny tiny electrical systems. What are some of the consequences of that? Positive: self-replicating, self-repairing electrical systems? Negative: clouds of squirming microbes filming electrical wires and disrupting power? I'm not sure I get the science involved with this one, so corrections and clarifications are welcome! Leave a comment and set me straight.

Sperm created from mouse embryo stem cells successfully fertilized a female mouse, resulting in a litter of seven. Six offspring survived to adulthood, showing developmental, respiratory and other problems. Nevertheless, researchers believe this is an important first step in aiding infertile couples.

Don't you just shudder to imagine the potential denigration and marginalization of future humans created with lab sperm? Still, I can also imagine a nice colony of fed-up women populating the stars from sperm engineered from their own stem-cells, making men redundant in the reproductive process. I can also think about a pretty gross future where something like the Tleilaxu axolotl tanks from Dune matched with artificial sperm create factories for manufacturing humans. Puts a whole other spin on "animal farm."

Researchers in England hypothesize that what we call "civilization" organized in response to pressure from a changing climate in ancient times. As available water resources dwindled, people converged and developed the order and power hierarchies we call civilization.

Considering the predictions of massive climate change in this century, how will modern humanity re-organize to survive such environmental pressures? How did your alien or fantasy culture do it?